Dogs can turn a dog-crazy street into a neighborhood, I wrote last week.

This week, a story about a neighborhood that became especially crazy about one dog.

The neighborhood is West Lakeview. The dog was Kuma.

Kuma was a 95-pound snow-white Alaskan malamute — a big, gentle dog that looked like a cross between an oversized stuffed animal and a polar bear.

Karen and Andy Gershon found her online and fell fiercely in love. They brought her home from a shelter in Kalamazoo, Mich.

She was malnourished, weighing only 65 pounds and possessed of heartworms, whipworms and such severe frostbite that on walks she had to have sunscreen on her hairless ear tips.

But the Gershons nursed her back to health, took her on walks — and discovered they were sharing their town house with the canine equivalent of Angelina Jolie.

"People just went crazy over this dog," Karen Gershon said. "People would stop in the middle of the street and say, 'What kind of dog is that?' I was walking in front of a Dunkin' Donuts, and someone was pounding on the window. It's like you were walking down the street with a rock star."

But Kuma was no diva. She was friendly, sweet and almost beatifically calm.

Children would jump off their bikes to rush over to hug her. Toddlers would throw their arms around her neck and bury their faces in her fur. Babies would reach out for her, beaming.

"She had this pull over people, especially children," Karen Gershon said. "She just had this aura about her. And she just loved everybody."

"She had a powerful, silent grace," said Steve Evans, Kuma's dog walker. "It seemed to deeply move everyone who knew her … everyone she came in contact with."

Which was pretty much everyone in the neighborhood.

"The running joke with Andy and Karen was, 'Now you know what it's like to be a celebrity mom and a celebrity dad,'" said Billy Kruzel, a neighbor and longtime friend.

"The UPS people knew her. The post office people knew her. The nannies taking kids out in strollers knew her," Evans said.

Caitlyn and Ella Peterson, the two little girls who lived a few doors away, knew and adored her.

"They got really close with Kuma," said Scott Peterson, their father. "She was so docile and gentle and pretty. Every time they saw her, the girls would gravitate toward her, want to pet her, want to be with her."

The people at Scooter's Frozen Custard knew her. Kuma would take her place in line at the walk-up window of the ice cream shop, waiting patiently behind neighborhood children for her free minicone.

The people at Walgreens knew her. Kuma would walk with the Gershons up to the drive-thru pharmacy window.

"She was just one of these animals that had this effect on you," said Kristin Terry, the pharmacy manager.

"She was on Frasca's Facebook page," said Andy Gershon, referring to a local restaurant. "She was on Scooter's website."

For six years, the neighborhood loved Kuma. But the flip side of love is loss. And three weeks ago, the neighborhood lost its dog.

Kuma was diagnosed with a massive liver tumor that had spread throughout her abdomen. Four days later, at age 8, the polar bear dog of West Lakeview was gone.

The Gershons grieved her as deeply as they had loved her. They posted a photo of Kuma on their front gate with a sign bearing a message from Kuma bidding the community farewell.

There were flowers at their front door from neighbors within hours. Caitlyn and Ella brought over handwritten notes.

"I am sorry," wrote Ella, 4.

"We mis her to," wrote Caitlyn, 6. She drew a picture of Kuma next to God, whom she portrayed with pigtails.